Loveland backyard chicken coops provide good pets as well as eggs (video)

By Jessica Benes Reporter-Herald Staff Writer

Posted:
11/12/2012 04:15:05 PM MST

Stylish Living

Milagro and Geisha Girl live in a two-level home with a picket fence that wraps around the stilts of their house and a backyard enclosed in wire mesh to keep foxes and raccoons from attacking. Geisha lays her eggs in the attic.

Lori Glasgow is one of many backyard chicken owners in Loveland who raise fowl for the eggs, not the meat. Her two bantam chickens live in style, since Glasgow is a woodworker and built a minimansion for the animals.

Each family has its own take on how to care for the chickens through the winter. While some families place heating lamps in the coops for the winter, Glasgow was worried about fires and is confident the chickens can cuddle together to last through the cold.

"Chickens will acclimate to the cold," she said. "I think they'll be fine cuddled in winter." The yard pets have stopped laying eggs and should begin again in the spring, she said.

According to Loveland's municipal code, domesticated fowl like chickens, ducks and geese are permitted to live within city limits, as long as the owners follow the mandate of properly maintaining living conditions as they would any other pet (Sections 6.28.010, 6.28.020).

Glasgow lived on a farm growing up and helped out with the chores. Chickens were always work to her. But these urban chickens aren't just livestock for her or the other families in town who have chickens in their yards.

She and her family feed them fresh water and chicken food every day, and also give them leftover apple peels, corn cobs and grapes.

Chickens can be given food scraps like fresh vegetables, grains or fruits, but nothing that wouldn't normally be in a chicken diet --like ham, birthday cake, milk products, meat or anything too sweet -- according to Kristy Pabilonia, assistant professor at Colorado State University in the veterinary department.

Homegrown Living

Lori Glasgow's bantam chicken named Geisha Girl perches atop the custom-built chicken coop that Glasgow built for the two chickens she keeps in the backyard of her Loveland home.
(
Steve Stoner
)

If Stephanie Hamill could be a locavore, she would. Life choices have an impact on this planet, and knowing where you get your food is meaningful, Hamill said. It is important to her and her husband, Brian -- who live a few doors down from Glasgow -- to teach their three children about where food comes from, so they bought their first chickens four years ago.

"I'm an animal lover," Hamill said. "Growing up, I volunteered at the Humane Society." They purchased four day-old chicks that first time. The baby chicks were guaranteed to be hens so when one grew up to be a rooster, they exchanged it for another chicken.

"My son was devastated," Hamill said, but it was to limit the noise level of their pets.

Nothing in the city municipal code forbids roosters specifically, but if the animal was causing undue noise like a barking dog, it would fall under code section 6.20.020, which forbids disturbing the peace with excessive barking, whining or other noise.

The Hamill family has lost chickens to raccoons and cold snaps.

"We have a light out there in winter, which keeps the coop heated," Hamill said.

"Chickens are hardy so it takes a lot to kill them." She said that the light also encourages the birds to continue laying eggs when they would normally slow down in the winter.

"It tricks them into laying if it's still light out. They're not the smartest animals around," Hamill said.

Easy Living

Chickens are like pets that don't want anything back from you. They don't rub your legs or sit in your lap. They don't whine at the backdoor wanting in.

Nancy Cole, next-door neighbor to Glasgow, just got her chickens in June. One of them came from the Larimer County fair. Her three chickens live in a Lori Glasgow special -- a coop Glasgow built that Cole painted to complement her house, red with beige trim (while her home is beige with red trim).

She said that the hens all have personalities like any pet and are excited to see her when she comes out. When all three start laying, she expects to no longer have to buy eggs at the store.

She lets them in and out of the coop every morning and night. Sometimes she places them in a large dog arena in the yard so they can peck at the grass.

Pabilonia advised that chickens should have an enclosed coop in Colorado with good ventilation. A nesting box should be available in the coop so chickens can lay eggs in a safe place. Purchase commercial feed at feed stores and be attentive to the needs of your chickens.